A New Cruise Ship Is Redefining Luxury in the Galápagos

(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- Somewhere between spotting blue-footed boobies off the island of Santiago and kayaking with sea turtles through the mangroves of Floreana, travelers on the 100-passenger Silver Origin were telling me the things they’d asked their butlers to do.

Among the requests: rearranging a suite for a private cocktail party, delivering ingredients for do-it-yourself Negronis, whisking away bathing suits to be washed and dried, and standing by the hot tub to fill Champagne flutes. It wasn’t the standard shipboard conversation in the rugged Galápagos Islands.

First-time cruiser Jen Wong, 60, a semiretired Oklahoma physician with a passion for birdwatching, found the whole butler thing embarrassing. But his wife, Danielle, 56, liked the pampering. “We’re always willing to sacrifice luxury or comfort to see the birds we want to see,” she says. “In this case it just felt nice to not have to.”

For decades, visitors to the remote volcanic archipelago, protected as the Galápagos National Park, have shown a willingness to book whatever ships and small boats were available, figuring the reason to come here was not modern-day amenities but stuck-in-time wildlife. Now that’s changing. Silver Origin, an all-inclusive and all-suite Silversea Cruises ship, is a significantly more lavish option—for some, dramatically changing the experience of this fragile, bucket-list destination.

Quietly launched in June 2021 and officially christened last month, the ship commands rates starting around $24,000 per couple, per week—about $6,000 more than its closest competitors. It’s attracting bookings from young executives who want to show the kids one of the world’s natural wonderlands, says Barbara Muckermann, Silversea’s chief commercial officer. On my one-week sailing in March from Isla San Cristóbal, guests included doctors, lawyers, businesspeople, and retirees, many in their 50s and 60s. Most were newcomers to cruising.

Besides butler service, which is novel in the Galápagos, Silver Origin introduces at-sea treats such as windowed bathrooms and a 39-square-foot digital display in the “Basecamp” lounge area that allows you to learn about animals by zooming in on 3D photography overlaid with factoids.

But there are challenges to delivering five-star service in the Ecuadorian islands, including some of the world’s strictest import restrictions. You can’t serve caviar or Argentine beef, for instance, but there’s very good Galápagos scorpionfish.

Counterintuitively, booking on the Silver Origin may offer an even more luxurious experience than going with a private charter. Small ships carrying 20 passengers—the kind Jeff Bezos opted for in 2014—don’t have much space (or butlers). Starting in June, Aqua Expeditions’ 16-passenger superyacht Aqua Mare (fares from $9,450 per person; charters from $196,000 per week) will provide interiors by Italian designer François Zuretti and an 861-square-foot owner’s suite, which can sleep four, with the kids on a twin sofa bed and pull-down berth. On Silver Origin you can connect two top-level suites to form an almost 2,000-square-foot, two-bedroom space with a wraparound balcony and ocean-view whirlpool baths, from about $110,000.

When I first ventured here a decade ago, the word “luxury” was avoided on a trip with Lindblad Expeditions Holdings Inc. No one cared whether you walked through the lounge barefoot. On Silver Origin, when you take off your wetsuit after deep-sea snorkeling among schools of fish and sea lions, crew members wrap you in Italian designer bathrobes.

That means you may end up surrounded by a crowd that’s drawn more to rooms with leather-trimmed walk-in closets than the symbiotic relationships between iguanas and birds. The guests on my ship weren’t immune to party antics. One evening a woman entertained her companions by plucking a color-changing lamp off a table and putting it down her dress.

To me, Silver Origin’s real draw has nothing to do with frills. The park requires all visitors to be escorted by a local certified naturalist. And not only has Silversea attracted the region’s best talent—it also one-ups many of its competitors with an intimate ratio of 10 guests per guide, compared with the usual 16 to 1.

In a place where nature trumps all, luxury is always having an arm to grab on to when, for instance, you’re suddenly deep-sea snorkeling amid a group of 4½-foot whitetip reef sharks. Or being able to follow directly in a guide’s footsteps as you tiptoe around thousands of scary-looking, spiky-backed marine iguanas on a volcanic beach.

Even the party-hearty crowd on our sailing expedition followed the rules ashore, all completely awestruck.

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